


The Beat of Your Own Drum

by helloshepard



Series: helloshepard's CYBERVERSE fix-it fics [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Cyberverse
Genre: Fade to Black, Fighting, First Kiss, Implied Sexual Content, Laughing During Making Out? Is That a Thing?, M/M, Mentions of Ensemble Cast - Freeform, Self-Esteem Issues, Unbeta'd, enemies to lovers speedrun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23100856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloshepard/pseuds/helloshepard
Summary: written as a response to @tfrarepairings prompt of "Soundwave/Hot Rod - Playing your own theme music when you walk into the room"Soundwave walks to the beat of his own drum.Literally.
Relationships: Hot Rod/Soundwave
Series: helloshepard's CYBERVERSE fix-it fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703764
Comments: 23
Kudos: 205





	The Beat of Your Own Drum

**Author's Note:**

> written as a response to @tfrarepairings prompt of "Soundwave/Hot Rod - Playing your own theme music when you walk into the room"
> 
> it's not necessary for understanding this fic, but if you want to know what the rest of the cybertronian resistance was up to while hot rod and soundwave were in the training sim, check out chapter five of [this fic!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22918414/chapters/54781981)

Soundwave walks to the beat of his own drum.

Literally.

He’s still glitching, of course. Though his face remains as inscrutable as ever, Perceptor is worried about that—if not because of Soundwave as a person, because if they can’t figure this out, if they can’t find the Scientist…

A hundred astrocycles, and five mechs have been pulled from the Loop. And three were on accident, and one is dead.

Hot Rod doesn’t feel good about their chances. He can’t vocalize it, though: Dead End has enough pessimism for the entire group—and some to spare.

Anyway. Soundwave.

Maccadam’s hasn’t been so lively in ages.

Maybe lively isn’t the word. It’s noisier, because Soundwave plays music. Constantly.

It’s loud enough that he can drown out the noise of the Prosecutors outside. Loud enough that when the Quints are gone, Hot Rod can imagine that his little group aren't the only active mechs on the planet. That maybe they aren’t alone.

When he’s not talking to Perceptor or Clobber or Whirl, Hot Rod mopes until Dead End snaps at him.

So he listens to the music. He’s trying to figure out what makes the mech switch tracks—his default tune is some kind of upbeat, pre-war song. A part of Hot Rod wonders if the mech is doing it intentionally. He doesn’t remember much of Soundwave before the war. He had been a fixture at Maccadam’s, Hot Rod remembers that much. But he doesn’t remember the music.

It makes the silence when Soundwave is glitching that much more noticeable.

* * *

Hot Rod wonders what it means that out of all the bots in the bar, Soundwave speaks to him the most. Belatedly, Hot Rod thinks maybe it’s either because Dead End doesn’t speak unless spoken to, and because Clobber is…Clobber. Which isn’t fair—he likes Clobber so much more than he thought he could like a Decepticon. Were it not for the faction symbol and love of casual violence, she easily could’ve been one of his friends. Maybe by now she _is_ a friend. Hot Rod isn’t sure.

The music Soundwave plays when he’s speaking to Clobber is toneless and staccato—Hot Rod wants to call it boring.

Whirl’s song reminds Hot Rod of the soundtrack to a long-forgotten action movie. Dead End and Perceptor share the same song, something melodramatic and slow. Hot Rod’s song reminds him of clown music from Earth, and he wonders if he’s supposed to feel insulted.

Maccadam doesn’t have a song.

* * *

Hot Rod wonders if the Decepticon is afraid. He and Perceptor haven’t told him what happened to Hound, and Soundwave hasn’t asked. But. There’s no Hound, and Hot Rod supposes that’s enough of an answer for Soundwave.

Hot Rod wonders if Perceptor regrets pulling Hound out of the Loop. He wonders if he should ask—Optimus would ask, Hot Rod thinks.

He doesn’t ask. 

* * *

Half the time, Soundwave is asking him about the circumstances of the world they’ve woken up in. He wants facts. Hard data. Hot Rod answers what questions he can, and directs him to Perceptor for the ones he can’t.

The rest of the time, they’re arguing.

It makes Clobber and Dead End uncomfortable. One day, when this is all over—if this is ever ‘all over’, Hot Rod makes a note to ask them about what actually goes on in Decepticon High Command. He still thinks about how eager Dead End and Clobber were to abandon Soundwave that first day. Soundwave is weird, sure. And violent, with a cruel streak Hot Rod has only caught a glimpse of. He might not be an Optimus, but Soundwave is certainly no Megatron.

Hot Rod thinks about the fact that none of the Decepticons—not even Soundwave—have suggested trying to pull Megatron out of the Loop.

He thinks about that a lot.

He leaves the Bailiff to Soundwave, takes Clobber out to their spot where they’ve attached the cortical psychic patches, and for a few hours, they relive the Loop. When they get back, tired and empty-handed, the holding cells are empty and the seams in Soundwave’s hands are green with Quint blood.

But he refuses to look away. Instead, he meets Soundwave’s visored optics.

* * *

Soundwave’s Hot Rod Music changes, after that. It’s a subtle, nearly indiscernible change, and Hot Rod doesn’t know what it means.

When they can get along, begrudgingly or not, usually after Percy or Mac snaps at them, it’s fine. Good, almost. Soundwave isn’t stupid, and Hot Rod wonders when the ‘bots got it into their heads that Soundwave was anything other than brilliant. He wonders if Soundwave’s arrogant, dramatic persona is merely a farce.

He wonders a lot of things about Soundwave.

* * *

It’s raining, and Maccadam’s finally gotten tired of their arguing and practically thrown them into the training sim. Soundwave surveys the arena with a critical eye, and doesn’t select a weapon.

“You know,” Hot Rod says, grabbing the weapon Dead End had used the first time. Not that he didn’t like the massive war hammer—he did, a lot—but he has a feeling that this time they’ll be fighting far past level 503. “We wouldn’t be down here if you didn’t piss off Mac.”

“And you—” Soundwave punctuated his statement with a jab to Hot Rod’s chest. “Should stop acting like Optimus Prime’s shadow.”

“At least one of us is trying,” Hot Rod snaps. “I don’t see you stepping into Megatron’s boots. Oh, wait: stubborn, misanthropic, frustrating, abrasive, not willing to take responsibility, _bolthead_. You’re exactly like him; no wonder you never tried to wake him up!”

He should’ve anticipated the punch, but he didn’t, because he’s tired and frustrated of getting nothing but dark looks and back talk. It’s not as hard as Soundwave could’ve hit, Hot Rod knows, but it hurts. He stumbles back, only to lunge forward and tackle the bot, knocking the blunt end of his weapon against Soundwave’s helm.

A distant, detached part of Hot Rod knows that Maccadam is watching them. The training drones haven’t appeared yet. He wonders if Mac is disappointed in them (in _him)_ and realizes just as quickly that he doesn’t care.

In a way, it's almost freeing. Optimus isn’t here to chastise or encourage. The others will follow along with whatever plan he thinks up, no matter how foolish or farfetched.

There’s only Hot Rod and Soundwave. And Soundwave is still— _still_ —playing his stupid music.

The staff is wrenched out of his hand. 

His back slams into the ground hard enough that Hot Rod’s optics freeze up for a microsecond, and he’s left with the afterimage of the ceiling’s brights. When his optics refocus, there’s Soundwave, standing triumphant above him. The blade is a half-inch from his throat; not touching, but close enough that Soundwave would only need to shift a fraction of his weight, and Hot Rod would be missing a head.

Belatedly, he realizes the music has stopped.

Soundwave tosses the blade away. It clatters to the ground, and Soundwave kneels. Hot Rod is uncomfortably aware of the Decepticon’s legs pressed against his sides. One hand on his shoulder. One on the ground. He feels his fans click on.

“If you try your flamethrower trick on me,” Soundwave says. “I’ll kill you.”

Despite the situation, Hot Rod feels himself smile. He manually overrides the fans, and once he’s apparently satisfied Hot Rod won’t try to burn him, Soundwave relaxes.

“Megatron would do nothing to help with the issue at hand,” Soundwave says. “He would sabotage your leadership.”

Hot Rod snorts. It comes out as a laugh. “You mean like trying to have me killed?”

“He would have done it himself.”

“Uh-huh.” Hot Rod looks directly into Soundwave’s optics. He wonders what Soundwave is thinking. “So. You were protecting me, is that it?”

The grip on his shoulder tightens incrementally. And Hot Rod’s grin widens.

Ratchet told him once that Hot Rod was sparked with both a playlist in his head and a preset, infinite list of bad ideas. He wonders what Ratchet would say about this latest one. 

He sits up, and Soundwave doesn’t try to stop him.

Hot Rod isn’t sure who moves next. (He does.)

He pitches forward, and then it’s Soundwave laying flat on his back, it’s Hot Rod pinning him in place. And it’s Hot Rod who just gave a Decepticon what’s possibly the worst kiss in the history of Cybertron. Later, he’ll tease Soundwave about kissing the mech’s battlemask more than he kissed the mech himself, but now…

Soundwave retracts his battlemask.

It’s after a few minutes of sloppy, _hot_ kisses, when his hand has come up to cradle the back of Soundwave’s head, and they’re fumbling for the release of their interface ports, when a sudden, hilarious thought occurs to Hot Rod.

“Two questions.”

“What.” Hot Rod’s noticed that Soundwave loses the modulation in his voice when he’s stressed.

“One:—” Hot Rod kisses the rim of Soundwave’s battlemask. “You got any viruses? Weird Decepticon…I dunno, things?”

“No.” Soundwave leans into Hot Rod’s wrist. His breath is hot against Hot Rod’s plating. Hotter, somehow, than his flames. “Your second question.”

Hot Rod laughs, because this situation is so, so absurd. He’s about to cross cables with the one of the Decepticon’s top lieutenants, in the middle of a slow apocalypse, in an inactive Titan’s training sim.

Soundwave is glaring, and that has Hot Rod smothering his laughter in the Decepticon’s shoulder plating.

“You gonna—are you gonna glitch out if it’s too good?”

For a second, Soundwave’s glare deepens. And then he grins, a wide, feral grin that has Hot Rod’s back struts melting. He gives in and collapses on top of Soundwave, feeling the Decepticon’s frame shiver against his own.

“Why don’t we find out?”

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is always appreciated! [here's my tumblr if you want to chat.](http://soundwavereporting.tumblr.com/)


End file.
